


Flickering Flame

by WildSpiritNorth



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Roller Coaster, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) Needs a Hug, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Orphan Keith (Voltron), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sentient Voltron Lions, Team Voltron Family, keith's birthday
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 04:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12499012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildSpiritNorth/pseuds/WildSpiritNorth
Summary: Keith thought that maybe this year his birthday would be different.He was wrong.





	Flickering Flame

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, first off I would like to say that I know Keith's birthday was two days ago and I really tried to get this out on time, but my internet was down so...fuck me I guess. 
> 
> I also couldn't figure out how old Keith was turing. If he was turning nineteen or if he turned eighteen this year. Google failed me.  
> So I just went with what almost everyone else did, which was nineteen. 
> 
> Also, my first plan for this fic was to just publish it in one go and be done with it. So surprise, there will be several chapters of this. That was not what I had in mind, but I just kept getting more and more ideas for this fic and I wanted to include them all, which I couldn't do in one chapter.  
> So there we go, a multichapter story....because I have time for that *coughs*not*coughs*
> 
> Also, each chapter will be based on a song. This one was Away From the Sun by 3 Doors Down
> 
> So, enjoy.

* * *

 

 

On Hunk’s birthday, he and the others cook for the Yellow Paladin. It doesn’t taste as good as Hunk’s cooking, but they try their best and Hunk appreciate the gesture.

Keith makes the cake. It’s slightly crooked and the icing is uneven, and because he has never piped anything in his life, the writing looks like it has been done by a three year old.

But Hunk beams at him when he presents it while the others sings so loudly his ears aches, so he figures it doesn’t matter.

It’s the first time Keith bakes.

 

On Shiro’s birthday, he gives his brother _freedom_. 

He steals the Black Paladin away from the castle and brings him to a planet covered in sand as dark as fresh ink, which glisters in the shine from the planet’s two suns. They spend hours racing their lions, like how they did with their hoverbikes back on Earth.

It reminds Shiro of _home_ and for the first time in months, Keith sees his brother _smile._

It almost takes away the aching pain in his chest.

_Almost._

On Pidge’s birthday, he allows memories he has hidden away deep within his own mind for over a year to resurface. He braves the pain and the longing the memories bring with them, so Pidge can know about the Matt he knew.

He tells her about _his_ Matt and how _his_ was not so different from _hers_ , even as the memories wraps around his hearts and _squeezes._ He forces back his own tears and ignores the way his lungs feels coated with ice.

Because Pidge wasn’t the only one who lost two people that day.

In the end, it’s worth it to see her smile.

 

On Lance’s birthday, he brings the Blue Paladin to a planet similar to Earth that took him several weeks to find. He leads Lance to a meadow filled with blue flowers that looks like stars, just as the sky opens.

He _watches_ as Lance stares up at the dark clouds in the sky as the rains falls around them.

He _listens_ as Lance shouts as loudly as he can, happy and carefree for the first time in months.

He _smiles_ as Lance laughs and dances along with the falling drops of water, soaked but content.

He _longs_ , as he wishes for the simple happiness he knows he can never have.

 

On his own birthday, he doesn’t do anything.

Neither does anyone else.

He never mentioned the date of his own birthday to the others, because he had wanted to see if anyone else cared enough to find out.

He tries not to think about what it means that no one did.

Shiro doesn’t remember, the date lost among memories still forgotten.

Memories that always seems to include him.

He has heard Shiro speak of moments the two of them had once shared, but he is no longer a part of them.

It as if someone took a picture and cut him out of it.

He does _not_ blame Shiro.

He has always been easy to forget.

He tells himself it doesn’t matter. After all, out of nineteenth birthdays, he has only celebrated four.

 

He was thirteen when he celebrated his birthday for the first time, a few weeks after he was adopted by the Shiroganes. They threw him his first party, with cake, decorations and presents. It looked just like the ones he had seen other kids have, but never been a part of.

Because someone like him didn’t get things like that, nice things.

He was so overwhelmed and confused, he started crying.

 

On his fourteenth birthday, he was accepted into the Garrison. The Shiroganes, who, to his big surprise and bewilderment, still hadn’t given him back to the orphanage, looked more proud than he had ever seen them.

It had surprised him that he could make anyone look at him in such a way.

It had never happened before.

 

On his fifteenth birthday, Shiro presented him with the official adoption papers. Shiro adopted him, so he wouldn’t be forced back into the system as their parents, the only parents that had ever loved him, had died a few weeks earlier in a car accident.

As he cried, Shiro held him close and promised everything would be alright.

That they would be alright.

 

On his sixteenth birthday, he stayed with Shiro out in the desert. They snuck away from the watchful eyes of the Garrison, gacing up at the sky until the sun chased the stars away. Most of the long hours were spent in silence because there was no need for words between them.

It was also on his fifteenth birthday that Shiro gifted him with his very own hoverbike, the very same hoverbike he would use to save his brother two years later.

 

On his seventeenth birthday, he was told the Keberos mission had been a failure. He was told it was due to pilot error, that he best pilot of his generator had lost control and crashed.

He was told that there were no survivors, that the persons he cared about the most were gone.

He was told his brother was never coming back.

On his seventeenth birthday, he was kicked out of the Garrison for punching a superior in the face. He broke the man’s nose in three different places.

Later, he was told he was being sent back into the system, that a social worker was already on her way to pick him up.

He knew they were lying.

On his seventeenth birthday, he fled to the desert. He fled to the only place he could think of, the only place he _could_ be safe. He fled to a place with a heavy heat and ice cold nights, with only sand as far as the eye could see. He fled to where his only steady companions would be the wind and his hoverbike.

He fled to where he would stay for another year.

He fled, because he was refused to believe the lies the Garrison was telling him. He fled, because he was looking for answers the Garrison wanted to keep hidden.

He fled, because he knew that if he didn’t, he would never find out the truth. Had he stayed, believed what he was told, the Garrison would have snuffed out his existence. He would have disappeared and no one would have asked why.

There was no one left to ask.

Because no one would look for a child no one wants.

On his seventeenth birthday, he lost everything.    

 

On his eighteenth birthday, he was speeding across the desert during the night when the sound of an explosion fills the silence Keith has grown so used to the sudden sound almost causes him to crash. 

The sky erupted in flames just as he raised his gaze upwards, so bright it chases away the stars for a few seconds. He followed the projection with his eyes before it disappeared behind the duns, bringing the darkness of the night back.

He didn’t move for a long moment, staring at the dunes. His hands clutched the handles of his hoverbike until it felt like his fingers were about to snap. His heart hammered so hard in his chest it felt like his ribs were going to break and his lungs felt like they were being filled with ice cold water.

Yet, his heart _burn_.

He raced across the desert, because something was screaming at him to just _get there._

On his eighteenth birthday, he set off several handmade bombs so he could break into a Garrison camp. He took down three Garrison military doctors and felt his heart stutter at, not what, but _who_ he found.

He found his brother.

On his eighteenth birthday, he found out that his brother was alive.

On his eighteenth birthday, he got his brother back.

It was also on his eighteenth birthday that a group of three suddenly became a part of his life.

The first was loud and obnoxious, claiming that the two of them were rivals when he still was a part of the Garrison despite Keith hardly remembering the other boy.

The second was large and nervous, but kind. He had been aghast at the state of Keith’s empty cupboards and had looked almost worried. For _Keith._ It had confused him.

The third was Matt’s little sister. She introduced herself as Pidge, as a boy, but Keith had known from the second he saw her just who she was.

She was almost a splitting image of her brother. From the same sand-coloured hair to the bright caramel eyes that swam with intelligence.

She was wearing Matt’s glasses.

Despite being the first time the two of them meet, Keith knew so much about her. He knew her favourite colour is a deep magenta, not green like everyone else believes, because that was the colour of her grandmother’s cottage where she spent many days while growing up.

He knew she loves peanut butter-cookies, but hate the dryness of peanuts. He knew she loves her mother’s stuffed Sicilian eggplant rolls, but would never eat eggplant in any other form. He knew her favourite candy is peppermint sticks, despite the fact that she hates the taste of toothpaste.

He knew she got bullied in school for her intelligence. He knew she didn’t have any friends, because no one could keep up with her brilliant mind. He knew her love for space equals his own and that it was her brother that spurred her towards joining the Garrison.

He knew so much about her, but she knew nothing about him. She knew Shiro, but not him.

He ignored the way his stomach twisted painfully at the knowledge.

On his eighteenth birthday his little shack in the desert, where it was usually only him and the unrelenting silence, is suddenly loud and filled with people.

He hadn’t known what to feel about that.

The day after his eighteenth birthday, the five of them is hurling through space in an alien-lion-spaceship he spent almost a year looking for.

They become part of a war four of them never knew existed.

They become the universe’s only hope.

 

Days turn to weeks, weeks to months.

They fight, they learn, they grow.

As time draws closer to his nineteenth birthday, Keith starts to believe that maybe this time will be different. He starts to hope.

On his nineteenth birthday, that hope _shatters._

On his nineteenth birthday, he finds that he still isn’t worth remembering.

He finds that he is still alone.

 

He spends his nineteenth birthday avoiding the others. He knows he can’t be around them without cracking, not after finding out that not a single one of them cares. He takes the cowardly way out and hides.

He misses lunch and Hunk’s enforced “snack time”. He misses group training.

No one looks for him.

He tries to ignore the way his chest aches and how his eyes burn.

At one point of the day, he spots the others in the lounge room. He observes them from a distance, staying in the shadows to remain unseen. His lungs feel constricted as he watches them, how easy they throw their arms around each other and laughs.

He sees how perfectly they fit together, like the pieces of a grand puzzle.

He sees how they have become, not a team, but a family.

He sees how there is no place for him.

He turns and leaves, just as he feels the first tears rise but he forces them back. He tells himself he isn’t going to cry, but it sound fake and broken even to himself.

He wishes he was smart and inventive like Pidge.

He wishes he was kind and bright like Hunk.

He wishes he was caring and friendly like Lance.

He wishes he was patient and brave like Shiro.

But he isn’t.

He is just Keith.

He tells himself he is fine.

He hates himself for not believing it.

He tells himself those four celebrated birthdays are enough.

But his heart refuses to listen.

His shoulders slump and he feels the fire in his chest flicker, until it feels like it has been snuffed out. His feet carry him down the hall, further away from the others.

Where it seems like he always ends up.

_Alone_.

**Author's Note:**

> So this quickly got a lot darker and sadder very quickly...sorry.
> 
> But tell me what you think and hopefully I will have the next chapter out soon.


End file.
